On Dec. 20 President Trump signed a bill into law temporarily halting the sale of Plum Island via auction for at least one more year. The legislation received bipartisan support from both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

While a challenge to the State Department of Environmental Conservation concerning the Sand Land mine in Noyac makes its slow way through the courts, Acting Supreme Court Justice James H. Ferreira has been asked to intervene in a dispute between the two sides.

The environment — including preservation, mitigation, and adaptation to a changing climate — was the dominant topic of East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc’s State of the Town address Tuesday at the town board’s annual organizational meeting.

Funding for a project on the East Hampton Town Board’s wish list was not among the nearly $7.7 million in New York State economic development money earmarked for the South Fork last month, but officials insist that the relocation of the town’s shellfish hatchery from Montauk to Gann Road in Springs is still the goal.

On Friday, the day that the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg turned 17, one of the legions she has inspired around the world staged his own climate strike outside East Hampton Town Hall, hoping in turn to inspire others.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Monday that an expansion of New York’s $175 million Workforce Development Initiative would include the launch of the Offshore Wind Training Institute at the State University at Stony Brook and Farmingdale.

Two Suffolk County laws intended to reduce the use of plastics went into effect on Jan. 1.

Item of the Week From the East Hampton Library Long Island Collection

A new seal for East Hampton Village, created to mark the 100th anniversary of the village’s incorporation, was unveiled at the village board meeting last Thursday.

Parents interested in more deeply understanding their children have several upcoming opportunities to learn from experts in the fields of education and child development.

East Hampton School District officials announced Tuesday they have planned a Monday closing date with East Hampton Town for the purchase of the town’s former scavenger waste site on Springs Fireplace Road, which the school district is buying for $2.3 million to build its own bus barn and auto mechanics classroom.

Climate activists are starting the new year with a redoubled effort to generate action, with one local group set to hold a daylong event aimed at doing just that.

There was no official “first flush” fanfare, but instead a simple announcement on Twitter last Thursday that the Springs School had turned on its newly completed innovative/alternative septic system while the students were on winter recess.

A Montauk man was arrested there on the evening of Dec. 27 after East Hampton Town police said he had intentionally broken the side-view mirror of a 2018 Range Rover.

On New Year’s Day, fighting against imminent darkness and weather, East Hampton Marine Patrol officers rescued two duck hunters stranded in their boat off Louse Point in Springs and holding on to a navigation buoy.

A 56-year-old man was charged with driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor, on Dec. 23 after crashing a 1997 Ford van into bushes off Route 27 in Montauk near Ditch Plain Road.

A 68-year-old man was seen in the 7-Eleven parking lot at about 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 28, urinating into a jar.

The Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill will run free after-school art workshops for children in kindergarten through fifth grade on Mondays and Thursdays from 3:45 to 4:45 p.m. starting next week. Participants will learn about various artists and use the work of professionals as inspiration for their own artwork. Advance registration is required at parrishart.org.

A masquerade ball fund-raiser at Union Cantina on Saturday will help underwrite a Southampton doctor’s mission in the Dominican Republic.

Udell M. Cullum, a self-taught architect and builder who helped construct the Art Barge and several houses in the Beach Hampton section of Amagansett, died of congestive heart failure on Jan. 1 at home in Springs. He was 94 and had been ill for eight years.